As you produce digital content to reach your target demographic, that content will effectively speak for your brand online. Hundreds, or perhaps thousands, of people will evaluate your business based upon what you post on your blog and social media. Understandably, you want that content to represent you accurately.
Follow these seven stages of content creation to hone your strategy to perfection.
Set a goal. What exactly do you want to achieve through your content marketing campaign? This is the first question you should ask, since the answer will set the tone for everything you produce going onward. Each decision throughout the next six stages of content creation should support this goal.
Create a content strategy. Determine which aspects of your business you want to highlight. Define your target demographic(s), brainstorm ideas for content that will appeal to them, choose content formats and decide where you will post this content.
For example, will you be writing blogs, filming videos, creating a webinar, or something else? Which social media platform appeals to your audience most? Will you launch an email campaign as well? Answering these questions will help you organize your strategy.
Research. Take a look at what rival companies are doing and examine the content that is already being produced. What works, what doesn’t seem to work, and how can you improve on what is already being offered?
Create content. After following the first three steps, you’re finally ready to generate content of your own. Offer your audience information that targets their pain points (the specific problems your target demographic is experiencing) and that appeals to their lifestyle and interests.
Curate content. Filter and publish your content according to profiles of your buyers. Then make sure your audience can find your content. You will do this by including the right keywords, utilizing relevant images,and boosting content on social media to target certain demographics.
Distribute content. Promote your content on multiple channels, to reach the most viewers possible. This might mean that you repurpose a YouTube video as a blog, or that you extract data for an infographic to be used on Twitter. If you’re running an email campaign, you might divide your email database by interests and send targeted messages.
Engage your audience. Invite your audience to interact with you. You can do this by asking their opinions or requesting that they comment with their thoughts. Include a call to action within your content, so that they know what to do next.
Now, here’s what you should do next: Shoot us an email or pick up the phone and call if you’re unclear on the details of your content marketing campaign. We can help you ask the right questions and develop a content strategy that addresses specific goals for your business.
